Would you go into this?

I bring this up because many departments are straying away from interior firefighting. I know that some do not have the staffing or experience to do it very often, but there are plenty that do. This is a fire that happened at 14 T St NW yesterday in DC. Several reports of heavy smoke and fire showing upon arrival. Rear was almost fully involved. However with an agressive interior attack using 1 1/2" hand lines, they were able to get a knock on the fire and extinguish it within under 10 minutes and save this persons house. Here's a pic after the bulk of the fire on the first floor was knocked down.

My main point is just to show that aggressive firefighting is still something that should be practiced when possible. Standing outside with a 2 1/2" would have probably meant the loss of this house and possibly others.(These are all row homes which means easy extension) Thought this may get some people thinking and be an interesting discussion.

Story from fire with pics: http://www.dcfire.com/history.html?view=1&id=70519

http://www.dcfd.com

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Permalink Reply by 55 TRUCK on October 22, 2010 at 10:54pm

Great Piece of Firefighting by PGFD! I did see a Truck guy RUNNING with a ladder..lol!

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Permalink Reply by 55 TRUCK on October 22, 2010 at 11:02pm

Philly, we attack the fire from the involved portion most of the times if it's on the side we pull up to. Why? 1. With todays nozzles and GPM pumps. Your not drizzling water so your not really pushing the fire as occured in years past. The other reason & I'm sure that you & Capcity and the few other City firemen have had to attack it from the involved side simply because you can't get around to another side or the house,appartment or tax payer is so chopped up inside the back door may actualy be boarded shut cause the coners made some kinda ghetto tastic tv room or a crack den.

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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on October 23, 2010 at 12:36am

And here I thought we were teaching the guys from DC how to do it!

I usually took the ambo when I was a volly there. I like running calls and got to be pretty good at EMS back in the day. The career guys tended to suck at EMS and hated doing it. Funny how volunteers were untrained and should be scrapped until the red phone rings with an ambo call..

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Salinger on October 24, 2010 at 5:29am

Im not overly experienced but id be saying yes i would go in to that. If i knew i had even 2000 gallons i would give it a shot, over here the most we can carry is 900 gallons of useable water. Our trucks dont get any bigger than that. And even then we go in unless there fire has self vented and is going end to end which is a good 80% of the house fires around here, so its good to actually save them when we get the chance.
Water supply is an issue around here but we would still go in and knock down what we can with what we have. The way i see it is if you can slow the fires progress untill backup arrives then you can save alot more. And you may just stop the fire. We have signals to tell us to get out.

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Permalink Reply by capcityff on October 24, 2010 at 9:33am

haha. It's kind of the opposite now. Career guys in PG are forced to ride the ambo.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Watson on October 25, 2010 at 9:10am

My Dept has 1 3/4" and 3" and yes, quick knockdown on exterior first. dont think 3" is too hard to move. also its a row house and most (not all) have a pretty straight shot to the rear of the structure where most of the fire appears to be. as far as the large diameter hose i would want the quickest knockdown possible due the the fact they are attached structures. i would rather water log one than loose all of them.

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Permalink Reply by Firechief2411 on October 25, 2010 at 9:14am

Me and my crew would make entry, you could knock this one out. They did a good job, I think department are so worried about life safety these days, things burn longer then they need to. Firefighting 101 put fire out and go home.

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Permalink Reply by Firechief2411 on October 25, 2010 at 9:16am

You hit this one right old heavy timber construction you have some time on this one.

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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on October 25, 2010 at 9:34am

Ugh. I'm certain they hate the hell out of that.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Oomkes on October 25, 2010 at 11:25am

Just messing with ya.

I knew what you meant.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on October 25, 2010 at 11:43am

Cap:
As you know, I have been around these types of discussions and am an advocate of firefighter safety; first and foremost.
I don't think that anyone familiar with the go/no go argument advocates not going in at all.
What is being advocated is a complete 360 followed by sound rules of engagement.
If it is safe to do interior-aggressive or not-then we should.
If it isn't safe, then there's nothing wrong with admitting it and changing tactics.
Where I come from, "aggressive" is the tactic; not the decision to be aggressive.

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Permalink Reply by capcityff on October 25, 2010 at 3:31pm

Exactly what I always try to say. Fires are no longer dangerous if they are out. Sitting around and not making decisions right away will only make it a bigger fire.